Two hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accompanied by his wife Sara, entered the hangar at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds on Jan. 5, giant TV screens were already flickering, showing a series of images carefully selected by the prime minister and his aides. Though the event opened the Likud's election campaign, the party did not appear in the images presented. They featured the one and only star — Netanyahu, for whom the race is personal — with world leaders, his wife and children and the Israel Defense Forces chief of the general staff at his side. US President Barack Obama, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and US Secretary of State John Kerry all appeared, one after the other. It was as if the last six years with the Likud leader at the national helm had not been bad enough for Israel’s foreign policy, as if those years had not been characterized by the ongoing deterioration of Israel’s international status.
It would not be a long shot to assume that none of the distinguished gallery of world leaders, unwittingly mobilized on behalf of the Likud election campaign, will shed any tears if Netanyahu goes home after the upcoming parliamentary elections, slated for March 17. What they think of him they have already made known in private talks leaked to the media. Be that as it may, it seems that the event held in a hall packed with Likud members was taking place in a parallel reality. Anyhow, the troubled relations between the United States and Israel were the last thing on the minds of the attendees.